


Whatever You Want

by toyhto



Category: True Detective
Genre: 2002, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Conversation feelings and porn I guess, M/M, after the fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:07:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23771305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toyhto/pseuds/toyhto
Summary: “I want it to be real.”“You’re a needy bastard, Rust.”
Relationships: Rustin "Rust" Cohle/Martin "Marty" Hart
Comments: 10
Kudos: 80





	Whatever You Want

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: [[translation] 你想要的一切 Whatever You Want](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24246787) by [hieroglyphics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hieroglyphics/pseuds/hieroglyphics)



> Rated E to be on the safe side. I don't know what I'm doing. [Visit my tumblr](http://toyhto.tumblr.com).

Two days later, Marty comes to Rust’s house. Maybe he wants to finish the job he started at the parking lot.  
  
Rust thinks about that for perhaps three seconds before he opens the door. Marty blinks and glances at the bruising next to Rust’s left eye.  
  
“Fuck.”  
  
“Yeah,” Rust says and steps aside from the door. Marty doesn’t come in. “What’re you waiting for, an invitation?”  
  
“Wouldn’t hurt,” Marty says, sounding genuine enough, so he probably isn’t here to punch Rust in the face. Doesn’t matter either way, though.  
  
Rust crosses his arms over his chest. Usually Marty’s easy to read, easier than most people, only Rust’s own perception around him is faulted. He doesn’t know for how long it’s been like that. Maybe it’s because for seven years now, they’ve shared a lie about what exactly happened at Reggie Ledoux’ lab. Or maybe it’s something Rust wouldn’t rather think about.  
  
But now, he doesn’t have a fucking clue what Marty wants of him. It’d make sense if Marty wanted to hit him on the face a bit more. But otherwise… no. “Come on in, man.”  
  
“Thank you,” Marty says and steps over the threshold. Rust follows him as he walks to the kitchen, hangs his coat on the back of a chair, then opens the cupboard doors until he finds a clean mug. He pours cold coffee in it and takes a sip.  
  
“It’s almost midnight,” Rust says.  
  
“Yeah, right,” Marty says and puts the mug on the counter. “Coffee’s cold.”  
  
“It’s from the morning,” Rust says. “Marty –“ But then he can’t figure out what to say, so he doesn’t. There’s still a couple of beers in the fridge, so he gives Marty one. The plan was to get drunk, but he hasn’t really started yet. Once he starts, it’s going to be difficult to stop. He should decide what he’s going to do next when he’s still averagely sober.  
  
He leans against the counter, looking at Marty, who’s just sitting there with slouched shoulders, staring at the bottle of beer he’s holding.  
  
“If you came here to fight –“  
  
Marty shakes his head, then looks at Rust. “I’m not as stupid as you think.”  
  
Rust bites his lip. “You aren’t?”  
  
“No. If we start fighting now, who’s going to save me?”  
  
“You don’t think you could take me?” Rust asks. It’s definitely the wrong thing to say but at least they’re talking.  
  
“I told you, I’m not so stupid,” Marty says and takes a deep breath. Something shifts on his face. “ _Fuck._ You… and her… and… fucking _hell_ , Rust, that’s just…”  
  
Rust walks to the cupboard and takes out a box of biscuits Laurie left there. That stuff doesn’t get old, right? He puts the box on the counter in front of Marty and gets the booze. He might as well start now. “You want to talk about it?”  
  
“No,” Marty says, “yeah. _No_. I just… Have you seen her?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“So, it’s not…”  
  
“No.”  
  
“The two of you –“  
  
“Fuck no, Marty.” Rust takes a biscuit. It tastes like a cardboard box, but he probably should eat something, if he’s going to drink. “Of course not. The whole fucking thing was like…”  
  
“One night.”  
  
“No. Five minutes. Or maybe three.”  
  
“And you aren’t going to –“  
  
“No,” Rust says. _Fucking hell._ He just hopes he’s got enough booze for whatever Marty came here for. It’s been some time since anyone’s blamed him for something he actually feels guilty of.  
  
“Why not?” Marty asks. He sounds fucking miserable. “Don’t you, I don’t know, _like_ her?”  
  
“Of course I like her,” Rust says. “But I like you more, you fucking moron.”  
  
“Me?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Marty shakes his head. “No.”  
  
“I’ve been talking to you about conscience and existence and stuff for _years._ Why did you think I was doing it?”  
  
“Well, I’ve always been wondering that.”  
  
“I like you.”  
  
“Alright,” Marty says and rubs his forehead. “Maybe you tolerate me in your better days. And I guess you think that means that you like me, but it actually doesn’t, Rust.”  
  
Rust shakes his head. Goddamn. He doesn’t even know why they’re talking about this, but for some fucking reason he needs to get some facts through Marty’s thick head for fucking once. Maybe the booze is starting to sink in. He drinks a bit more.  
  
“Rust,” Marty says, looking at Rust like he’s asking something, but Rust doesn’t know what the bloody question is. He doubts Marty knows either. If he did, Rust could grab his shoulders and shake him until it slipped out.  
  
“You’re my only friend,” he says.  
  
“Really?”  
  
“You ever see me talking to anyone else?” He closes his eyes. Alright, he’s drunk, and it’s been terrible fucking two days. “And I fucked your wife.”  
  
He flinches when Marty grabs his arm, then he waits for the punch but it doesn’t come. When he opens his eyes, he sees Marty looking at the mouth of the bottle like he’s expecting to see something there. His grip on Rust’s arm is tight enough that his fingers might leave bruises. That’d be good. Rust could look at them and remember Marty was actually here.  
  
“Your face looks bad,” Marty says, turning to look at him. His eyes get stuck on the bruising. It’s still angry red and fucking sore. That’s good, too. It’s good that there’s something for Rust to look at, something real that tells him why he’s feeling like a goddamn ground has shifted under his feet. “Did you go to hospital?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“It looks like you might’ve needed stitches.”  
  
“And what do you know about that,” Rust says, resisting the urge to touch the damn thing.  
  
Marty squeezes his arm. He’s got no fucking idea why Marty’s still clinging into him, but he damn well isn’t going to ask. “My wife’s a nurse,” Marty says in a blank voice, “so I guess I know a few things. Have you cleaned it?”  
  
“Fuck you,” Rust says but can’t make it sharp.  
  
“Yeah, well,” Marty says, then slowly raises his free hand and touches his fingertips against Rust’s temple. Rust flinches, can’t help it. Marty’s still holding onto his arm. He blinks, breathes out, lets his eyes close for a second. “Does this hurt?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Sorry.”  
  
“Yeah,” Rust says, “ _I’m_ sorry, Marty, that was… sorry.”  
  
“You damn well should be, you fucking asshole,” Marty says, brushing his thumb against the bruised skin on Rust’s temple. “You _fucked my wife._ ”  
  
“Sorry.”  
  
“I don’t know what I’m doing.” Marty takes a deep breath. “You want me to stop?”  
  
“Not particularly.”  
  
Marty stops anyway, pulls his hands away and pats Rust on the chest. Rust lets him, watches as he reaches for the box of biscuits, takes one, takes a bite and then glances at Rust. “Is this what you eat?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Good,” Marty says and takes another biscuit, then drinks of his beer. “I’ve messed up my goddamn life, Rust. I’ve messed up so badly. I think she really wants a divorce.”  
  
Rust takes a biscuit as well. There’s a moment when he thinks Marty’s watching his mouth, but then Marty blinks and it’s gone.  
  
“And I don’t…” Marty says, pauses, and shakes his head. “I don’t think I could… I’d be thinking about you with her.”  
  
Rust swallows.  
  
“I’m not going to hit you,” Marty says, glancing at him.  
  
“You can.”  
  
“I’m not going to.”  
  
“You’re the only person that I talk to,” he says. His voice is thin, but he can’t help it now. He’s slept maybe a few hours since Maggie left his place three days ago. It’s beginning to sink into his bones. With the booze, of course. “You can hit me if that helps.”  
  
“You just want to keep talking your philosophical nonsense to me,” Marty says, watching him now. He doesn’t sound steady, either. “You’d let me punch you in the face to keep doing that.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Think about if I did that,” Marty says, “if I came to your house and said to you that I didn’t come to fight, and then I’d drink your beer and eat your biscuits and be all nice to you and then I’d just punch you in the face?”  
  
Rust shifts in his chair so that he has the intact side of his face at Marty.  
  
“I’m not going to touch you.”  
  
Rust blinks.  
  
“Not like that,” Marty says and finishes his beer. “You have another?”  
  
They sit in silence for a long time. Marty drinks his second beer. Rust drinks his booze. There’s an empty space in between their and he can’t reach across it, doesn’t know why he needs to. Maybe that’s because he quit his job. Everything is adrift now. For seven years, the job has been what has kept him in place, and now there’s not that anymore, there’s only Marty who’s sitting at the counter, facing the exact spot where Rust was with Maggie three days ago. If they could all see everything they’ve done, maybe they’d hate each other. Maybe they do now. Maybe Marty hates him and that’s why he’s here, eating the awful biscuits and staring at Rust’s empty corners with a determined look in his eyes like he’s decided to break Rust apart. That’d probably be much easier than he thinks.  
  
“Where’re you going from here?” Rust asks, and it cuts the silence too sharply. But that’s the thing in life, you can’t take anything back.  
  
Marty shakes his head. “I’ve been staying at this one motel.”  
  
“You could stay here for the night,” Rust says.  
  
Marty glances at him and nods.  
  
There’s a mattress upstairs where Marty left it in 1995. Marty drinks water from the tap in the bathroom and takes off his clothes until he’s wearing nothing but boxers. He’s got to realize that Rust’s staring but he doesn’t say anything. And Rust wouldn’t know how to answer. The booze has made everything softer but words are hard. Nothing fits. He watches as Marty sits down on the mattress, says it’s alright, he’s fine with linen and a pillow, doesn’t need a blanket, the night is going to be warm anyway. Then he says good night.  
  
Rust goes back downstairs and stares at himself in the mirror for a long time.  
  
  
**  
  
  
There’re slow steps on the stairs and then Marty’s voice, calling Rust by his name.  
  
He sits up on the mattress. Marty’s standing at the doorway. It’s too dark to see the look on his face, but it’s still easy to see that he doesn’t have a fucking clue about what he’s doing. Nothing new under the sun.  
  
“Can’t sleep?” Rust says.  
  
“I don’t understand how you keep yourself sane when you don’t sleep,” Marty says.  
  
“I sleep a little,” Rust says and ignores the other thing.  
  
“You’re full of shit,” Marty says and takes a step towards him, then stops again, like asking for a permission. Rust could ask him what the hell he is doing, but what would be the point? He already knows Marty doesn’t know.  
  
“We can stay up,” he says, because someone has to say something. “And talk. Or not talk. Drink, probably. Whatever you want.”  
  
“Whatever I want –“  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“You don’t know what I want.”  
  
“You don’t know what you want, either.”  
  
Marty laughs, but it sounds hollow. It sounds like a sad drunk man laughing to an impossible joke alone in a room full of people. Rust folds his knees against his chest, wraps his arms around his legs, and then waits while Marty takes lonely steps closer. Maybe Marty’s changed his mind about punching him in the face. Maybe it started looking like a good idea again. That would certainly make more sense than _this._  
  
Marty stops at the side of the mattress, doesn’t sit down, just hovers there. “If I asked you to explain –“  
  
“Marty –“  
  
“Would you?”  
  
Rust looks at him. “I don’t think it’d make much sense.”  
  
“Was it about me?” Marty asks.  
  
Rust breathes in and out, straightens his back, tilts his head to the side, but nothing helps. He wants to get up and walk away, but where? They’re at his home. Marty came here and he asked Marty to stay for the night. He could go to the yard, have a cigarette, but surely this is a better place to have this conversation.  
  
And it’s not like he didn’t fucking _knew._ He probably knew it already when he saw Maggie at his door in her pretty dress.  
  
“You don’t want me to answer that,” he tells Marty, because maybe he’s a coward after all, like the rest of them.  
  
“Why?” Marty asks. “Did you want to piss me off? Did you want me to be as lonely as you are?”  
  
“No. Marty –“  
  
“Fuck you,” Marty says. “Stand up, Cohle. Just fucking stand up.” He pulls his shoulders back, adjusts the waistband of his boxers, what a ridiculous gesture, like that’s going to matter if they fight. Rust stands up and walks to him, two short steps, and Marty raises his chin to look at him in the eyes. So, maybe they’re back to the punching in the face part. That’s good.  
  
Marty shifts and Rust prepares himself for his right hook, but that never comes. What happens instead is that Marty grabs his dick though his boxers. The voice he makes isn’t in any way surprising, but he hates himself for it anyway. When he shoves Marty backwards, Marty goes easily enough, staring at him with open mouth.  
  
“What the fuck?” he asks. “You don’t want me.”  
  
“You didn’t want _her_ ,” Marty says, simple enough.  
  
Fuck.  
  
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”  
  
“I don’t,” Marty says in a tight voice, “I really don’t, so I just need you to fucking tell me. I’m a fucking mess, Rust, she won’t take me back and I can’t have her back because I can’t stop thinking about you with her. And these past seven years, I’ve spent more time with you than anyone, more than with my girls, more than Maggie, so you see what’s the problem here, right?”  
  
“I don’t,” Rust says, which is partially true, like all the truths are. “I don’t see it.”  
  
“You’re the only thing that’s left,” Marty says. He sounds like he’s about to start crying. “I lost everything else. I think I lost you, too, and now I’m trying to hold onto you because I think you might be the only thing that I might get back.”  
  
“Marty –“  
  
“I can’t be alone,” Marty says, “I’ve never been alone, I don’t know how to do it. You’re a fucking asshole, Rust, but you’ve got to stay with me. Tell me you did it because of me.”  
  
Rust clears his throat. “I did it because of you.”  
  
“Because you wanted me instead,” Marty says, his voice breaking in the middle of the sentence so that Rust barely hears the end of it. But he already knows.  
  
He closes his eyes for a second.  
  
“Fucking hell, Rust,” Marty says, walks to him and shoves him at the chest. He grabs Marty’s wrists almost like that one time in the locker room. He’s not about to break any bones. Fuck, if he could avoid it, he wouldn’t break fucking _anything_ for the rest of his life. And he definitely wouldn’t break Marty. Marty’s the only one who listens to his bullshit and still comes back to him, hands him a napkin when he’s got a flu, tells him to shut up when he’s about to say something clever in the wrong place.  
  
“It’s not like I’ve been thinking about it,” he tells Marty, who’s right at his face, breathing onto his neck. Marty smells of beer and sweat. “It was never on the table, so I haven’t.”  
  
“What?” Marty asks. “What haven’t you been thinking about?”  
  
Rust shakes his head.  
  
“Tell me,” Marty says and apparently tries to kick him in the knee, but they’re too close and Marty’s knee hits him in the groin instead. Not hard, though. Barely enough to hurt. And it makes it better, makes everything sharp.  
  
“I wasn’t thinking about,” he says, “that we might fuck. I never thought about it. Because it was clear that you weren’t going to. You didn’t want that, didn’t want me.”  
  
Marty stares at him. Maybe it was a bit too much, after all.  
  
“I don’t know what it’s about you,” Rust says, because he already started, “you drive me mad all the time, and yeah, lately more than before, because you’ve just been fucking _blind_ , Marty, you let me do all this work on my own, all these disappeared kids, you _know_ I’m onto something there, and then it all blows up and you don’t even take my side –“  
  
“You fucked my _wife_ ,” Marty says and tries to shove at him, but what happens instead is that his body gets pressed against Rust’s.  
  
“Yeah,” Rust says, taking a firmer grip on his wrist, “yeah, so I did.”  
  
“Because you couldn’t fuck _me._ What kind of a dickhead does that, really?”  
  
“I did,” he says. He doesn’t even need to keep Marty close, because Marty does it by himself. His knee is in between Rust’s legs now, and the only thing he needs to do is shift a little, and then -  
  
Rust takes a sharp breath. It sounds like a moan, it _is_ a moan, and then he tries to swallow the next one, but his cock is trapped in between their bodies and Marty’s pressing against him. He hasn’t got a chance.  
  
“What now?” Marty asks, a little breathless, a little shaky, holding onto Rust as if Rust is the only thing that keeps him from falling. That’s too bad, because Rust’s got nothing to hold onto himself.  
  
“Nothing,” he says, “ _nothing_. I can’t –“  
  
“I said,” Marty says, “ _what now?_ ” He presses tighter against Rust, pushes his hips against Rust’s cock. He doesn’t know what he’s doing at all and it shouldn’t be working, but it is, it’s working better than anything else in… seven years, probably. Rust’s totally fucked, probably has been ever since he started dragging that goddamn secret with Marty. At some point, he started trusting Marty, and that’s how people get fucked up.  
  
“Whatever you want,” he says and lets go of Marty’s wrists. Marty blinks at him like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands now, but then he grabs Rust’s undershirt.  
  
“I haven’t thought about it,” Marty says and sounds sober for a fucking second. Rust almost laughs. “Don’t look at me like that, I didn’t know this was going to happen:”  
  
“What do you want,” Rust asks, “a catalogue? So that you can pick?”  
  
“Wouldn’t hurt.”  
  
Now he actually laughs.  
  
“You’re an asshole,” Marty says, “I hope you know that.”  
  
“Yeah, I _know._ ”  
  
“I haven’t done this before.”  
  
“What?” Rust asks, then puts his hands on Marty’s neck, holds them there, because it seems there’s a good chance Marty’s going to let him. Marty stares at him, swallows and swallows and he can feel Marty’s throat move against his fingers. “What exactly haven’t you done before?”  
  
“You know,” Marty says. Rust knows the look in his eyes, it’s the one that says he trusts Rust to fix it. He had that look in his eyes back in 1995 when they were at Ledoux’ lab and he had just shot the fucker in the head. He’s had that look in his eyes many times since.  
  
Rust places his hand on the side of Marty’s face, and Marty leans against the touch. “We aren’t going to fuck, Marty.”  
  
There’s a second of silence. “You fucked my –“  
  
“Yeah,” Rust says, “yeah, I know. But I’m not going to fuck you.” Then he leans in and kisses Marty. Marty elbows him in the chest but kisses him back, the idiot, can’t decide even now, when he’s standing in his boxers next to Rust’s bed in the dark. He pushes his fingers into Rust’s hair and tries to tug, seems surprised that’s Rust’s hair is short, then bites at Rust’s lips, like he can’t make himself to kiss Rust for real. Rust just fucking hopes Marty’s not going to tell him how the man’s explaining all this in his head. Maybe this is some kind of revenge. Maybe Marty’s curious. Maybe Marty wants to wreck him, wants to make him look like he’s begging for it, and yeah, that’s going to work.  
  
_Shit._  
  
If he could stop thinking now, he would. He would stop thinking about what’s going to happen after, the awkward morning, or maybe Marty’s going to fuck off in the middle of the night. Or maybe this is foreplay for another fight.  
  
What’s certain is that it was never supposed to happen like this – it was never supposed to happen at all. Maybe there’ve been times when he’s thought about Marty while jerking off in the shower, maybe he’s thought about another version of their lives in which Marty would pull the car over in the middle of endless fields in a hazy dream, and then, Marty being all bossy about it, his hands tugging Rust’s trousers to his knees, pushing him down at his face against the hood of the car, grabbing his hips, grabbing his cock. In a hazy dream. But life is a path of endless choices and every one of them closes a thousand doors, and all the doors to anything like this have been closed for as long as he can think of. So, if he could stop thinking, he would just take it, no questions asked.  
  
“Marty –,“ he says against Marty’s mouth, because Marty’s kissing him properly now. It’s an odd mixture of what Marty probably thinks about how Rust wants to be kissed, and how Marty would kiss a one-night-stand – with a distinct aim to impress. But Rust’s mind can’t keep up. Rust’s mind is everywhere else, in every fucking choice that wasn’t supposed to lead them here. “ _Marty –_ “  
  
“What?” Marty asks, pulls away and breathes against Rust’s neck. He’s shaking a little, like he’s angry. Rust wraps his arms around Marty, pulls him closer, kisses his temple.  
  
“This isn’t real,” Rust says.  
  
“Fuck you,” Marty says, pushing his hands under Rust’s shirt. His fingers brush against the old bullet scars. “This is real. This is –“  
  
“ _Marty._ ”  
  
“Can’t you just kiss me, man? Why do you need to make everything so fucking _complicated?_ ”  
  
“This was never going to happen,” Rust says, pulling him closer. “If I had thought it might be, I would’ve done things differently.”  
  
“What? What kind of things?”  
  
Rust shakes his head. “Like, not… with Maggie.”  
  
“You asshole,” Marty says, trying to tug at Rust’s hair again, and now he seems to have figured out how to do it because it works. Rust lets his head be pulled back and presses his dick against Marty’s hips at the process. “We’re already kissing, Rust. Don’t talk to me about her. Or don’t you want to?”  
  
“Of course I want to,” he says. It helps that Marty’s pulling his hair. Half of his brain is clinging into that, so he can’t think about all the scenarios in which this wasn’t going to happen.  
  
“So, what’s the fucking problem then?” Marty asks. He sounds like he’s about to shatter.  
  
“I want it to be real.”  
  
“You’re a needy bastard, Rust.”  
  
“Yeah,” Rust says and closes his eyes. “If we were other people, if this was some other life, I think, Marty, I think I might’ve fallen in love with you.”  
  
“Holy shit,” Marty says but doesn’t let go of Rust’s hair.  
  
Rust takes a deep breath. His ears are ringing. The booze, the insomnia, the way Marty’s fingers are brushing on his chest and stomach under the shirt, lightly, gently, while Marty’s other hand is tugging his hair.  
  
“I’m not in love with you, Rust,” Marty says and kisses him. “I don’t think I have it in me.”  
  
“Yeah, I know.” It’s difficult to think about anything else than Marty’s hands, though.  
  
“But this is real,” Marty says, lets go of Rust’s hair and touches the bruising. “Sorry about this.”  
  
“Don’t be.”  
  
“You said,” Marty says and kisses his chin, “you said, whatever I want.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“So, get down on the mattress.”  
  
He thinks about arguing, but that door: already closed. He goes easily enough, and Marty comes with him, tugs at his undershirt until he manages to get it off, then kisses down on his chest, pauses at the bullet scar, kisses it too. “Marty –“  
  
“Whatever I want,” Marty says and collapses on the mattress next to him. “Take your boxers off.”  
  
“What’re we doing?”  
  
Marty blinks, then reaches in between Rust’s thighs and covers his dick with palm. “I’m going to suck you off.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Your face, Rust,” Marty says and kisses him, “fucking hell, if you could see your face, it’s… I’ve never seen you give a fuck about anything.”  
  
“That’s not true,” he says. “Marty –“  
  
“Yeah, I know. But true enough. You always look bored and like nothing could touch you, no, nothing touches Rust Cohle, because you’re just so goddamn cynical about it all. But look at you now. Look at you, Rust.”  
  
“You don’t have to. I would –“  
  
“Shut up,” Marty says in his nice voice and pushes his fingers under the waistband of Rust’s boxers. “And take these off.”  
  
It's a game of some sort. It’s got to be, but he can’t figure it out anymore. He takes his boxers off because Marty asks him to and lets Marty push his knees apart, kneel in between them, hold him by his hips, and it’s all good, of course it is, only he can’t make sense of it. He stares at the ceiling, at the shadows, at the broken lamp he never got fixed. It’s too late anyway. He’s let himself think what he and Marty could have been in another life and now he’s going to pay.  
  
There’s no way he can hold back the groan when Marty fondles with his balls, brushes a fingertip further down, barely touching, definitely not trying to push it in, not trying anything, like he’s just lost. Then Marty grabs his thigh. He hasn’t cut his fingernails. He squeezes a little, and Rust can’t catalogue the noises he’s making himself, can’t, even though he needs to, so that later, he could count how far he’s slipped. He bites his lip hard enough for the pain to cut through the haze for a second, but then Marty clears his throat and takes Rust’s cock in his mouth and it’s all gone. The sharpness, the thoughts, the fucking idea of what’s happening here, it’s gone.  
  
It takes ages, and Rust only realizes that later, when he’s been about to come for some time and Marty just doesn’t let him.  
  
“Fuck you,” he says, trying to hold onto something, but Marty’s hair is too short and his shoulders are damp with sweat. “Fuck you, Marty, fuck you, I need to –“  
  
“Shut up,” Marty says, pulling back. “This taking too long for your liking?”  
  
“Marty, I can’t –“  
  
“Whatever I want,” Marty says, climbs on him until he can kiss Rust on the mouth. Rust can’t even make himself kiss back at this point. He’s shaking and he needs to come and he never much liked the taste of cum, the least his own. “Whatever I want, yeah?” Marty asks, staring at him.  
  
“Yeah. Yeah, of course. I just…”  
  
“I want you to tell me,” Marty says, suddenly sounding sober. It’s fucking frightening, because Rust is a mess. “I want you to tell me that you need me. That you need me to suck your dick and kiss you and fuck you and that no one else’s going to be enough. I fucking need _something_ , Rust. You fucked my _wife,_ so try to fix it.”  
  
Alright.  
  
Rust closes his eyes when Marty goes down on him again.  
  
So, Marty needs him to talk. He can talk. He doesn’t know what he’s saying, but he can talk. It’s something about the thousand doors, about how we can’t rehearse life, how we can never know what we actually choose at the time when we’ve got to choose, how he’s wanted Marty to fuck him against the car at the side of the road nowhere, how there’s this crazy idea that if everything was different, maybe he and Marty could have a some kind of life together and it’d make sense, they would annoy the hell out of each other but there would be also, well, there would be companionship, kindness, trust, all those things. He could live with the fact that’s Marty’s a cheating bastard. Marty could live with the way Rust sometimes gets so lost in his own head he can’t find a way out. They would make sense together. They wouldn’t be happy because people are never happy, not really, that’s just an illusion that makes it harder to let go for good. But they would be alive. There would be a life.  
  
In the end, Marty pulls back and finishes Rust with his hand. There’s no way telling how much time has gone. Two minutes, five minutes, half an hour, he can’t tell. His mind is a puzzle where nothing fits and he’s been calling Marty’s name probably for some time, begging, if you like to call it that. He comes in Marty’s hand and Marty stares at the mess with a puzzled look on his face, like he wasn’t expecting that, but then he wipes his palm on the sheets and settles on the mattress next to Rust, kisses him on the throat while he’s trying to catch his breath.  
  
“Never heard you asking so nicely,” Marty says.  
  
“Fuck you,” Rust says. He can barely make his voice work. There’s a taste of blood in his mouth, apparently he’s bitten his lip a bit too hard. “Tell me what you want, Marty. Whatever you want. You want me to blow you? Because I can –“  
  
“Not today,” Marty says. “Give me your hand.”  
  
Rust gives him his hand. Marty takes it, wraps Rust’s fingers around his own cock and then covers Rust’s hand with his, hisses in between his teeth when Rust squeezes just a little over the tip. Then Marty takes over. He stares at Rust through the whole thing, though, stares at Rust with flushed face and open mouth until he comes, the cum leaking in between Rust’s fingers as he rests Rust’s hand against his stomach, fingers folded into a fist like Rust’s supposed to be holding something.  
  
“I need to take a piss,” Rust says.  
  
“In a minute,” Marty says and pushes the damp strands of hair from Rust’s face.  
  
  
**  
  
  
He wakes up when it’s still dark. Like always, his head feels worse than if he hadn’t slept at all. He gets off the mattress, goes to the bathroom, closes the door and switches on the light. He looks like he's high or something, trying to reach his own eyes in the mirror. He’s still flushed, his skin glistening, and there’s something on his chin that he doesn’t want to think about. At least Marty let him go take a piss and wash his hands before they fell asleep, so what’s stuck on his skin now is mostly sweat.  
  
He sits down to piss. Fuck. Fucking fuck. This wasn’t supposed to happen, and not like this, and he can’t _think._ He can’t figure out what it means, what Marty wants, what’s going to happen now, and he can’t think about anything else, either, because there’s nothing to think about. He quit his job. There’s nothing for him, except for Marty, and who the fuck knows what’s going on inside Marty’s head now?  
  
He washes his face and then takes a quick shower as well, because he’s not going to fall asleep anyway and he smells fucking awful and his skin is sticky. He tries to jerk off, too, when the water’s falling on him and all he can smell is soap. But he can’t get his mind to the right setting. His cock gets half-hard but not further, not even when he thinks about Marty’s fingertips brushing against his arsehole. Marty was probably just trying to show off, and fuck how it worked out. The bastard couldn’t have planned it better, and the worst thing is that he probably didn’t plan it at all.  
  
When Rust goes back, Marty’s lying on his side, watching him. Marty’s still naked, has propped his elbow on the mattress and his chin on his palm.  
  
“I took a shower.”  
  
“I can see it,” Marty says. He sounds like he’s trying to forget a dream. “You think I should too? I bet I don’t smell good.”  
  
“I don’t mind.”  
  
“Yeah,” Marty says slowly, “I suppose you don’t.”  
  
Rust sits down on the edge of the mattress but doesn’t lie down. At least he’s wearing clothes again, a clean pair of boxers and an undershirt. The night’s too warm for that but it makes him feel better.  
  
“Is this a one-night stand?” Marty asks, his voice hoarse and bare. “Do you want me to fuck off before morning?”  
  
Rust shakes his head. “There’s no need. I’ve got coffee.”  
  
“And biscuits.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“You’ve got coffee and biscuits, so I can stay.” Marty’s quiet for a few seconds. “Rust, you told me you’re in love with me.”  
  
“No, I didn’t. I told you that I could be, if things were different, I could be in love with –“  
  
“Shut the fuck up,” Marty says and reaches over, touches Rust’s back. “Come on, man. I’m not angry.”  
  
Rust swallows. It feels nice, the way Marty’s stroking his back with slow, careful movements over the fabric. “No one wants to say they’re in love with someone who doesn’t feel the same.”  
  
“Yeah,” Marty says slowly, “about that. I came here, didn’t I?”  
  
“You came to mess with me, so you’d feel better about Maggie.”  
  
“Alright. And you slept with Maggie because you wanted me and felt she was the closest you could get.”  
  
“I was very drunk.”  
  
“You’ve been a judgemental piece of shit ever since I met you,” Marty says, “and for fucking once you made a mistake yourself.”  
  
Rust snorts. “I’ve made mistakes.”  
  
“Not as many as me,” Marty says, chewing on his lower lip. “I think we’re good together, you and me.”  
  
“Good together –“  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Like what?”  
  
“Like two people who’re about to share a bed,” Marty says, “and maybe kiss in the morning, and drink coffee and go to work.”  
  
“I quit.”  
  
“Yeah, well, we’re going to need to get you back. I’m not going to do that shit alone, Rust, no way. And I hear that there’re people going missing, women and children, so I hear. Someone’s got to figure out what that’s about.”  
  
Rust takes a deep breath. “Is that so?”  
  
“Yeah,” Marty says. “Now come to the bed. And take your shirt off. Or don’t you want me to touch you?”  
  
Rust takes his shirt off and lies down next to Marty. It’s a quiet night. Marty’s hands are warm and gentle on his skin and it’s difficult to think about anything else. He thinks he might get a few hours of sleep tonight.


End file.
